Hacker News Reader

Comment by devoply | Hacker News Reader

> "it was concerned that a large increase in the number of women posed a serious problem for the future of the university hospital, because female doctors tend to quit after marrying or starting families."

View on HN

If you read the various sources linked, they don't have any reliable data showing this is happening, just "a strong sense" that it is the case. Without basing the decision on evidence, it's just another example in a long list of things medical professionals had a "strong sense" women can't handle.

And you're responding with your "strong sense" without considering that Japan might be different. In Japan, around 60% of women quit their jobs after having their first child [1]. In a country that still frowns on "job hopping" and still clings to the outdated notion of lifetime employment in one company, many of these women are unable to re-enter the workforce in anything other than menial part-time work.

It's not just the systemic gender discrimination but the fact that women in Japan aren't given a chance to balance careers with marriage/children is what's made this such a sensational story.

1. https://www.works-i.com/column/panelsurveys/%E8%90%A9%E5%8E%...

And I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for you.

This is the sort of prestigious medical school where sons and grandsons and nephews of wealthy families are expected to be able to graduate. When too many of them were suddenly not being admitted because smarter, harder-working women were outclassing them on their exams, the admissions department needed to "calibrate" the superior scores of the female applicants in order to maintain a healthy stream of legacy revenue.

To put it in a slightly different context: part of the change is that women actually get to be doctors before starting families, and maybe after. This was not as common before due to birth control pill being accepted in Japan only in 1999! It changed the view for the recent generation a bit.

I don't know how much of this is just the administration trying to come up with an excuse for their behavior, but this seems to say a lot about Japanese culture. In the West, discrimination was historically used to raise one above others and reinforce hierarchy. This behavior displays another very different, though equally abhorrent, practice. Japan's particular strain of collectivism is discriminating in order to create some perceived advantage for the country as a whole. Compare with American segregation, where a black person living near white people was seen as morally backwards because of the belief in racial superiority and hierarchy. This specific instance poses a more concerning behavior to me, because the people in question here did not think about discriminating in order to serve themselves; they were convinced that they were doing something good for everybody. Though attitudes have changed in Japan about gender, it seems like this will be something that will take a long time to go away because people don't only need to rationalize their discrimination, but instead they are convinced that they need to continue it as some kind of protection against societal issues even if they do (on the surface) believe in equality.

Japan does have a rapidly declining population because of the extremely low fertility rates and the increasrd aging putting its workforce into welfare reliance. I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures?

>"Instead of worrying about women quitting jobs, they should do more to create an environment where women can keep working," Maeda said in a statement, according to The Associated Press. "And we need working style reform, which is not just to prevent overwork deaths, but to create a workplace where everyone can perform to the best of their ability regardless of gender."

Sure, but only one of the two options is available to the people who are actually making the decision.

Somehow I doubt that this medical school has already implemented or tried every robust maternity leave, childcare, or other family support policy that would address their concerns about female doctors being forced to choose between quitting or having a family, and so the school simply has no other options left but to secretly deduct points from female applicants.

Desperate measures would be the government establishing, using the scientific method, that yes indeed there is a birth rate problem that is severe enough to justify drastic action, and then establishing an actual effective solution that did not inequally infringe on citizen rights.

If this article is an acceptable form of desperate measures, I think an equivalent would be Exxon deciding there are too many rich black people, and thus paying black engineers less. (private organization using unfounded information to take an action that doesn't make any sense outside the generally accepted social contract)

Being a mother in Japan can be miserable. You must give up everything you ever loved and confine yourself to a small apartment and a local park. You're no longer allowed to be an intellectual being or a participant in public life. Women don't want it, because women are people, human beings who want to live a full life. If having a child is the end of your life, it's not a good bargain for many women.

The US is deeply imperfect -- but no one will tell you that having had a child you can never, ever go back to your profession.

There is always the alternative to die out. In the face of that a little influencing does not seem so bad at all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com